In This Life, I Will Be Your Dog - Chapter 122

Bellona took a step back and issued a cold warning, “Stay right there. If you come any closer, I can’t guarantee what I’ll do.”

“What, are you planning to kill me?”

“You think I can’t?”

“No, I think you can. You’re better with a sword than I am.”

With a twisted grin, he suddenly tossed something at her. Bellona’s face twisted further as she looked down at what had landed at her feet.

It was a dagger, soaked in someone’s blood.

“Aren’t you curious whose blood that is?”

“……”

Grinning with pride, he let out a deep sigh as if boasting of some great feat.

“I killed my own child. And, of course, the wench carrying that child too. Imagine—the sly woman actually bore my seed.”

“……!”

“And did you know? Mona dying is partly your fault too, Bellona. You were the one who let her into my room.”

Net’s earlier comment about Mona’s disappearance flashed through her mind.

“When on earth…”

“She dared show up again today, bringing that poison. I pretended to take it and watched her play her tricks. I wanted to see if what Caelus said was true. And then she told me she was pregnant.”

At that moment, his expression twisted savagely.

“Can you believe it? That lowly woman dared to carry my child. So I killed her. What if a woman like her gave birth to another monster like me? I did the right thing, didn’t I, Bellona?”

Seeing the man smiling brightly again, she realized—he didn’t even need the poison anymore. Impes had gone completely insane.

A gust of wind swept past, rustling through Impes’s silver hair. A wave of the stench of blood hit her nose.

Bellona bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to steady her rising nausea.

The peacefulness and ease she’d enjoyed for the first time in so long had turned to pure disgust in an instant.

Just his presence was enough to ruin everything.

“Look at me, Bellona. I’ve only ever been sincere with you. No matter how much those other women tried to tempt me, it was always you for me.”

“Go back.”

“I don’t care whose child you’re carrying. I’ll raise it well. No, we’ll raise it together even better. So come with me. I’ll make you happy, okay?”

As she calmly watched the man approach with bloodstained hands, she finally lifted the hem of her dress and drew the dagger strapped to her thigh.

Seeing the blade in her hand, he stopped and pouted. “Do you still not understand how I feel? I love you. Me—I, Impes, love you, Bellona! More than that bastard Caelus ever could!”

Shouting suddenly, he beat his chest in frustration and tilted his head back with a deep sigh.

His bloodshot red eyes swirled with madness before locking back onto her.

“What do I have to do for you to believe me, huh? What do you want me to do?!”

Tension crackled between them.

A murderous glint began to fill Bellona’s eyes. Her hand moved to her belly, as if to shield it from sight and sound.

“Arrogant Impes. Still trying to manipulate me with that snake’s tongue.”

“Bellona, please!”

This time, it was Bellona who stepped forward. The dagger in her hand gleamed sharply, dripping with murderous intent.

“Today, you have no siblings of mine to use as your shield. What will you use to stop me now?”

Her clear green eyes, once cool and serene, now churned dark and deep, as if that fateful day before the regression had returned.

For a moment, Impes’s brow furrowed. Watching her advance, his hand drifted subtly to his waist.

Seeing this, Bellona twisted her lips and tightened her grip on the dagger.

“That’s more like you. You’ve always been that kind of man.”

“I didn’t realize you knew me so well.”

With a similar crooked smile, he revealed the hidden dagger in his hand and lunged at her.

“So that’s why—I was obsessed with having you.”

In that instant, all emotion vanished from Bellona’s gaze. Because beyond his voice, she heard another.

“Go ahead, stab me.”

A sharp blade lunged toward her belly.

“Put down your sword while I’m still speaking nicely. If you do, I’ll spare your siblings.”

As Bellona twisted her body in a spin, her voluminous dress flared like a dancer’s skirt.

While Impes’s eyes were caught by the sight for a split second, her dagger swept through his unguarded thigh.

“Urgh!”

Impes’s body staggered.

But before he could even recover, Bellona grabbed his blood-soaked silver hair and slashed his arm.

He let out a short scream and wildly swung the sword in his hand. But to Bellona, once called the goddess of the sword, Impes’s skills were no more than that of a child.

She easily dodged his sluggish strikes and sliced the hand holding the sword, then ducked and ruthlessly slashed the back of his other thigh.

“Aaagh!”

His scream rang out as his leg gave out and collapsed. Yet Bellona’s green eyes, now cold with killing intent, showed no emotion.

“You insolent wretch. What are you waiting for? Start the execution!”

She heard only the echoes of the past, the things Impes once said, as if possessed, reenacting what she had been unable to do back then.

As if painting a picture, Bellona carved wounds across Impes’s body. Even as his form grew drenched in blood, she didn’t stop.

As if determined to drain every drop from his body, she mindlessly hacked away.

Then suddenly, a sharp sword intercepted hers.

On instinct, she twisted her wrist to strike the intruder—

“Bellona!”

A loud cry rang in her ears, halting her completely. The black haze clouding her vision lifted all at once.

She opened her wide eyes to see Caelus looking at her, face twisted in alarm.

“Bellona, are you okay?”

“Hic! Ugh!”

Overcome by sudden nausea, Bellona shoved Caelus’s hand away and rushed to a nearby tree, curling up.

The pain felt as if her insides were being torn apart, and wave after wave of nausea blurred her vision.

It was as though someone had poured blood into her nose, the stench so overwhelming it turned her stomach.

“Call the imperial physician, now!”

Caelus’s fingers trembled as he supported Bellona’s increasingly limp body.

“Bellona, stay with me. Bellona!”

His voice seemed to grow more distant. But seeing his face, full of worry, finally brought her a sense of peace.

“Cael…”

Before she could finish his name, her green eyes fluttered closed.

***

It felt like she had dreamed a very long dream. But once awake, it was all like a wave that had swept away every trace.

Only the faintest sliver of memory remained—and even that wasn’t clear.

“Bellona, are you awake? Can you see me?”

Slowly turning her head, she blankly stared at the worried man’s face.

At that moment, the hazy dream came back a little clearer.

“In the dream… I saw you.”

“Hm?”

“When I first entered the palace… I cried during training because it was too hard, and someone came and gave me a handkerchief…”

Her fragile voice trembled.

“But in the dream, that person was you. Silly, isn’t it?”

“What’s silly? You’re saying it’s funny that it was me?”

“No… I mean, even something so trivial—something I’d long forgotten… even that memory now becomes about you.”

“So is this your confession? That you’ve come to love me that much?”

“Yes…”

Her unhesitating answer caught even him off guard.

Caelus let out a breathless laugh and kissed the back of her hand.

“You really mess with people’s hearts, you know that? If I’d known you’d give me such a headache, I wouldn’t have handed you that handkerchief back then.”

“That was just a dream… and the man who gave me that handkerchief back then—”

“A white handkerchief. My mother made it herself and gave it to me. She said that carrying something clean like that would remind me to behave better, so I wouldn’t want to stain it.”

“……!”

“I never thought it would end up being her keepsake.”

Bellona’s hazy eyes widened.

With a teasing smile, Caelus leaned closer. “So? What happened to that handkerchief? Don’t tell me you threw it out somewhere.”

“Th-that’s not funny… It was just a plain handkerchief, without any embroidery or anything.”

“Exactly. My mother was a bit of a wild one—she didn’t know how to embroider. She probably made up some fancy reason for the handkerchief just to sound proper. I was always causing her trouble.”

Her green eyes, clear as glass, trembled as if still in disbelief.

“Still, it seems your unconscious mind remembered me. When we met again on the battlefield, I recognized you right away, but you didn’t seem to recognize me at all… I was kind of hurt, you know.”

“Really? You were really the one who gave me that handkerchief?”

Instead of answering, he kissed her again—softly, gently. As he smiled with his eyes crinkled, her heart thudded loudly in her chest.